In general, the present invention relates to an information-processing system, an information-processing apparatus and an information-processing method. More particularly, the present invention relates to an information-processing system, an information-processing apparatus and an information-processing method that allow, for example, a content purchased by the user to be kept in a server.
In recent years, portable information terminal devices, such as a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) and a digital portable telephone, have been utilized. Due to their small weight, it is convenient to connect the portable information terminals to the Internet for obtaining audio or video data content through a purchase arrangement or free download.
However, memory embedded in the portable information terminal device does not have sufficient storage capacity. Thus, when new content is purchased with limited available memory, that is, a state in which a number of contents has been already stored in the memory, the user must erase a content already stored in the memory or, as an alternative, the user must erase a content already stored in the memory after copying the content to another memory, typically a memory card if the user does not want to lose the content.
As described above, as the number of contents to be used increases, the user must prepare a memory card for extra capacity, or, in the case of only one memory card available, contents stored in the memory card must be further copied to a large-capacity hard disk of a personal computer. As a result, operations to be carried out by the user become complicated.
In addition, when the user wants to use a content, which was once copied to the hard disk of a personal computer, in the portable information terminal device, the content must be copied back from the hard disk to the portable information terminal device by way of the memory card or it is necessary to connect the portable information terminal device to the personal computer and copy the content from the personal computer to the portable information terminal. In this case, the operations to be carried out by the user also become complicated as well.